Friday, 26 May 2017

In exactly a month's time, I’ll officially be a quarter of a century
old.

Over the years, i've lost track of how many times I wanted life to come with instructions (or a rewind button!) Since neither of these things exist... yet... I thought i'd write a brief list of things I wish i'd known at 15.

1. If you use the internet to self-diagnose, Google
will insist you buy a gravestone for your mild

headache.

2. Don’t even try to wear high heels – your ankles
will fail you.

3. Panic attacks pass. Even when they feel like
they won’t, they always end.

4. You shouldn’t have to convince someone to want
you in their life. Walk away.

5. Fish is rancid - why on earth do you keep trying
sushi?

6. Stop buying so many books and never getting
around to reading them!!!

7. Don’t believe the whole ‘first year doesn’t mean
anything’ mantra at uni – use it to get a leg up, go to academic support, while
everyone else is being scraped off the floor at Ocean nightclub.

8. Stay up-to-date with politics. And always vote.
Women died so you could vote.

9. Don’t walk by a homeless person without offering
to buy them a drink and something to eat.

10. Trust your gut. It’s usually right.

11. Never let someone make you feel like a doormat
for being kind.

12. There’s nothing a bubble bath and a new book can’t
fix.

13. You’ll feel younger and more naïve at 25, than
you did at 15.

14. There is nothing wrong with being tee-total.

15. Write a six monthly bucket list – make sure you
complete it.

16. Waxing is expensive and more effort, but it
doesn’t cause really painful abscesses.

17. Quickest way to get a guy to leave a room? Talk
about periods (or, my friend Hannah’s method, afterbirth).

18. Don’t eat at dodgy looking restaurants – you only
have to look at food near its sell-by date to be ill.

19. Life rarely goes to plan – the more you try to control
it, the more wildly it’ll veer off course.

20. Travelling is incredible.

21. Learning how to swear in different languages is
fun.

22. If you’re unhappy in life, make radical changes –
try new things, make new friends, leave a stale job…

23. Don’t ever give someone the power to make you
question your self-worth.

24. Tell your family and friends you love them every
day.

25. You definitely won’t be married or have kids by
twenty five. The very thought makes you feel ill!